


Burying The Child

by YouLookGoodInLeather



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Gen, Grieving, Growing Up, Male-Female Friendship, Post-ACOMAF, mental health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-04-07
Packaged: 2018-10-16 03:04:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10562397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YouLookGoodInLeather/pseuds/YouLookGoodInLeather
Summary: Feyre has fashioned herself into a weapon. She's different now, stronger - and yet she lost someone dear in the process.





	

History was once again repeating itself, but this time I was different; I would not make the same mistakes as I had before. I doubted I could even if I wanted to. Fate and its sick sense of humour had warped me too much for that. 

“I remember when Tamlin first bought you those paints,” Lucien mused. “You sat in here all day for weeks, like a child with a new toy. It was very endearing, really.”

He sat across from me, lounging upon a daybed below a window in the gallery. His body lay splashed with sunlight, turning his hair a gorgeous shade of amber and his bronze skin, exposed by the open-necked shirt he wore, shone like clear liquid honey. One could mistake him for a god were it not for the signs of strain that recent events had carved into him, from his hollow cheeks to his nervous, restless fingers; The latter of which was really quite irksome. 

“Stop fidgeting,” I quipped, frowning and biting down on the tip of my tongue. “I’ll never be able to get you right if you keep moving. Honestly, and you compare me to a child.”

“I do have a few years on you, fair lady.” 

“That only makes it worse.”

Lucien managed to still himself for a rather pathetic minute before his forefinger resumed their tapping upon his thigh, but I made no comment. The back and forth bitching we’d developed when I’d first arrived at the Spring Court had now evolved beyond the antipathy and mourning we’d shared. He no longer held the death of Andras against me, and I in turn agreed not to speak of what had passed here whilst I was at the Night Court. This silent agreement meant we were both more comfortable in sharing quiet moments together, knowing neither would verbally assault the other. In a case of mutually assured destruction, we both knew the wounds such talk would inflict could scar us both.

“I can’t believe it’s only been a year since we first met,” Lucien said, his gaze fixed out the window at the surrounding gardens. “Only a year since we were all prisoners. Or, a year since we were able to admit to it aloud.” 

He was breaching dangerous territory, but I’d long stopped being scared by it. It had only been two months since my return to Spring, and yet it was already apparent to me that no one save Tamlin and Ianthe thought the deal with Hybern was wise. Since the High Lord and his Priestess were out on a ride that day, I saw no harm in letting Lucien say whatever it was that was bothering him. 

“Missing Amarantha, are we?”

“Oh, dreadfully,” Lucien said, playing along with a theatrical swoon. He laughed when I scolded him for shifting his position. Though I had come to see Lucien as an ally, I could never come to like his laugh. It always spoke of so much pain. “What can I say? She kept Tamlin occupied. He does so love to have an enemy.” 

Finished sketching, I took up mixing up the colours I needed on the paint palette. “He’s a fool for choosing Rhysand as his new target,” I said quietly, struggling to get the right skin tone. There would be time to learn proper painting technique, if only I could survive the war. The past year had been spent fashioning me into a weapon, no time for games. Who I was had been carved into steel and fire and power, so that I was more a  _ what  _ than a  _ whom _ to the world now. Beyond what I had briefly shared with Rhys, I had not known softness in a long time. 

“If what you say about the Night Court is true, I don’t doubt it.” Lucien looked over at me, his metal eye as unnerving as ever. Still I had not dared to ask just what it allowed him to see, but I felt as if it could somehow discern the contents of my soul. 

He chewed the inside of his cheek whilst I distracted myself with mixing paint, before he finally spoke, “You’ve changed so much, Feyre.” He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. “I must admit, I’m impressed by who you have become. Even if Rhysand did not exist, I’d hate to make a foe of you. So forgive me when I say I am also in mourning.”

Cocking my head, I finally had the courage to look back at him. Did he speak of Elain now? “Mourning whom?” I asked. The smile he gave me hurt as much as the two months apart from Rhysand had. It spoke of pity, pity I could not bear.

“I am in mourning for a close friend. A friend I made under Amarantha’s rule. A human girl, who came here with childish anger, who could be made happy and placid by nothing more than paint. A girl who screamed and cried and didn’t know any better than to wander out at night on Calanmai, and who could fall in love even with a Beast.” He did not drop my gaze. “I grieve for you too, for losing her. I’m sorry you can’t be her any more.”

He’d spoken so softly, so quietly, that we both flinched when I snapped my paintbrush in half. Claws edged out of my knuckles, my grip too tight. I was still learning the depths of my new strength, though I didn’t care as anger flashed upon my tongue. “Don’t be,” I hissed, snatching a fresh brush and ramming it in the prepared paint to coat it. “She was a stupid, foolish little victim who knew no better.”

“That, fair Feyre,” Lucien said, back to looking out at the gardens, “is exactly why I mourn for you.” 

I hadn’t been so angry since- well, since Hybern. Tamlin was an idiot, a dangerous idiot, but I had long since given up expecting anything else from him. However, Lucien I had thought smart and clever, and I had come to value his opinion. That he could say such things, say that he  _ missed _ me being the pathetic, trampled ruin of a woman I had been… I could not speak I was so incensed with rage. 

For nearly half an hour, I stabbed and scraped at the canvas to vent my fury, all the while composing a righteous speech to throw back at him. As I slowed painting to make my stand, however, Lucien said idly, “It’s a rare thing in Prythian these days, to know no better.” He did not look away from the gardens as he smiled. “But then spring has to fade sometime, doesn’t it? Even inside this court.”

I froze, the hairs of my brush slowly fanning out wider and wider, ruining the neat outline of the face I’d painted. I could tell he’d noticed, a slight twitch echoing through his facial muscles, but neither of us spoke. I returned to painting, and he to lounging. It was another one of our silences, the ones that were there to protect us both. Yet I feared I had already been wounded.

I did not know why, or how. Inexplicably, his words had birthed a gaping, aching feeling in the middle of my chest, as if he’d blown a hole straight through. How had he done this? I did not  _ want  _ to be a victim any longer. Rhysand had healed me, helped me to save myself. I knew I made the right choice when I felt my strength at the Weaver’s house coursing through my muscles. I had summoned wolves from mere water, saved Velaris from the Attor, broken the wards of the King of Hybern himself. I was so much _ more _ now.  

And yet… And yet now, as I thought back to those days with Tamlin, I missed ‘her’ too. I even missed those times, those happy, strange times when Tamlin had been my world, and sunshine and painting and gardens had been all I needed. When fairy wine had sent me laughing and dancing, and when I was angry I could shout and scream and argue, instead of having to bide my time and plot, scheme, and manipulate. 

Back then, everything had been simple. I had not known of the games played in the courts, nor of the real danger the fae could pose. My enemies had been unchanging, stoic creatures: hunger, exposure, the winter’s cold. They had obeyed strict rules that I had learned to navigate. Now I sat in the court of my kidnapper, all to protect those I loved so dearly, whom I had not known before. Even back when I was younger, Elain and Nesta had been protected for me. Now, I had to do all of the protecting myself.

And I was good at it. I had killed the weak parts of myself one by one by one, sacrificed until I had no excess left within me. All this had made me strong. I knew that when I decided to turn on Tamlin and strike Hybern, they both would fall at my knees. I was a force to be reckoned with.

My skin prickled, the hairs standing on end. As I tried to focus on my painting, my vision swam as I failed to blink away unwanted tears. Why? Why did I suddenly regret all of this? Every choice I had made I knew was right and good and true, and yet a heavy part of me longed to undo it all.

Worst of all, I yearned to return to myself as I had been after escaping the mountain. I missed the days of having to decide nothing, of letting Ianthe call the shots and having Tamlin order me around. I missed lying in bed and crying and vomiting the whole night through. It made no sense, but I missed those times where I felt entirely justified to do no more than that. If I even came close to that now, I would betray so many, including myself. 

I realised I was crying. Even that small sign of weakness seemed grotesque in my new strong, warrior body. Crying was for the skeleton I had left behind, something I was no longer allowed. That sentiment only made it worse as I devolved into blubbering like an infant, my brush shaking in my hand. 

Fingers brushed my shoulder, and a moment later Lucien knelt beside me and pulled me into the warmth of his embrace. I wanted to shove him off and tell him I did not need him, but the words died in my throat. It hurt. It all hurt. 

“Why?” I asked through tears and huge gulping, gasping breaths. I hadn’t cried like this since I was a little girl, since before my mother had died. “Why am I crying? I have never been stronger. Never been more loved. Never been happier.” 

“Never had so much to lose,” Lucien said, stroking my hair. “Never had so many people’s futures to protect. Never had so many loves to keep alive.” 

My chest felt as if it was cracking open. Years and years worth of forcing myself to be strong, of protecting others, suddenly crashed down around me. Ever facet of pain I had tucked away and silenced now erupted from wherever it had been buried. I cried, and I cried, and then I cried some more. 

When I finally fell quiet, hiccuping up the occasional sob, Lucien was the first to speak, “It’s okay, you know. You’re allowed to mourn her too.”

“I don’t want her back. I don’t want to be her again. Not really.”

“I know,” Lucien said, his voice honest, free of the usual patronising drawl. “I know. But you deserve to grieve her too. It was you who had to kill her after all.”


End file.
